ML-HCAs have the potential to significantly change an entire healthcare system. It is not even necessary to presume that this will be disruptive but sufficient to assume that the mere adaptation of...

In this article, I explore plant semiosis with a focus on plant learning. I distinguish between the scales and levels of learning conceivable in phytosemiosis, and identify organism-scale learning as the distinguishing question for plant semiosis. Since organism-scale learning depends on organism-scale semiosis, I critically review the arguments regarding whole-plant functional cycles. I conclude that they have largely relied on Uexküllian biases that have prevented an adequate interpretation of modern plant neurobiology. Through an examination of trophic (...) growth in plant roots, I expose some conceptual difficulties in attributing functional cycles to whole-plants. I conclude that the mapping of resource areas in the root system is a learning activity requiring higher-scale sign activity than is possible at the cellular scale, strongly suggesting the presence of organism-scale functional cycles. I do, however, question whether all perception-action cycles in organisms are accompanied with organism-scale semiosis. (shrink)

This report includes 1) the previously unpublished findings of a current study about the teaching of ethics at leading English-speaking institutions in the Pacific region, 2) a comparison of those findings with a companion study conducted at leading institutions in the Atlantic region in 2008, and 3) the aggregate findings of the two studies considered as parts of a single research project. The purpose of the research was to determine how ethics is taught at selected leading English-speaking institutions of higher (...) education, the challenges their ethics teachers and students face, how individual faculty members enhance their ethics teaching effectiveness over time, in what senses of the word “ethics” can ethics be successfully taught, what types of creative pedagogical tools have these faculty developed, whether the ethics professor should “take a stand” or be “unbiased,” and related questions. In both studies most participants stated that a passion for the subject matter, for teaching, and for assisting students was more important than new technologies, teacher training, teaching video recordings, and working with mentors. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently focused on critical, epistemological challenges that arise from the opacity of deep neural networks. One might conclude from this literature that doing good science with opaque models is exceptionally challenging, if not impossible. Yet, this is hard to square with the recent boom in optimism for AI in science alongside a flood of recent scientific breakthroughs driven by AI methods. In this paper, I argue that the disconnect between philosophical pessimism and scientific optimism is driven by a (...) failure to examine how AI is actually used in science. I show that, in order to understand the epistemic justification for AI-powered breakthroughs, philosophers must examine the role played by deep learning as part of a wider process of discovery. The philosophical distinction between the 'context of discovery' and the 'context of justification' is helpful in this regard. I demonstrate the importance of attending to this distinction with two cases drawn from the scientific literature, and show that epistemic opacity need not diminish AI's capacity to lead scientists to significant and justifiable breakthroughs. (shrink)

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

This paper examines the learning and performance of the air traffic control (ATC) work domain. This domain was chosen because it embodies features that represent future work for many other industries (e.g., information service provision mediated by information technologies; a high reliance on communication skills and collaborative work; increasing complexity and intensity of the work activity), within an organisational context undergoing considerable change. In ATC work learning occurs formally as part of accredited training and informally, as (...) class='Hi'>part of everyday practice. In this way learning and experience of ATC work shapes – and is shaped by – the way work is organised, which includes the divisions of labour and technological artefacts. ATC work is experienced temporally, complexly, through affect and socially. Controllers learn to use a variety of socio-material resources which include embodiment and artefacts to undertake the work. In so doing the article demonstrates the ways in which learning and performance is not just a cognitive undertaking, but one that draws on embodiment to achieve what here is called “interdependent sentience”. This involves using all their senses to gain an awareness of problems as they emerge to collectively accomplish a seamless air traffic flow in a complex interdependent socio-technical system. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Education as Transforming Ways of Being Our Ambiguous Relation to Our World Ambiguity of Becoming Reconfiguring Professional Education as a Process of Becoming Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes References.

We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In (...) 31 chapters contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom. (shrink)

This article is divided into three parts: the problem (globalized learning); the consequences (for general music education); and the vision (the music teacher as a cultural figure). In the first part, I claim that the current learning agenda is being increasingly instrumentalized as a carrier of a global education policy driven by technical rationality. In the second part, a range of possible implications of this paradigm for music education are outlined. What is being sacrificed on the (...) altar of learning measurement is the crucial ability of schooling to be ingrained in the historical, cultural, musical background-understanding of the world. Thus, the world of schooling slowly becomes reduced to a neutral, geometrical space of measured performance governed by input-output/producerconsumer calculations. Finally, in the third part, I pick up some ideas from the German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger to suggest an open possibility for today's music teachers to act as cultural figures for their subject. Such action is about disclosing a shared, common world in which music since prehistoric times has belonged by way of all kinds of communal acts. This crucial point invites music teachers to create and nurture marginal spaces together, where the output-oriented school paradigm temporarily becomes suspended. (shrink)

We explore multi-scale relations in artificial intelligence (AI) use in order to identify difficulties with coordinating relations between users, machine learning (ML) processes, and “sociobuilt contexts”—specifically in terms of their applications to medical technologies and decisions. We begin by analyzing a recent COVID-19 machine learning case study in order to present the difficulty of traversing the detailed causal topography of “sociobuilt contexts.” We propose that the adequate representation of the interactions between social and built processes that occur on (...) many scales ought to drive interdisciplinary approaches for ML modification. Next, we describe ML algorithm development as a process that is partly dependent on methodological stabilization for reliability and partly on coordinating relations. In the coordination between user, ML process, and sociobuilt contexts, we propose that new methods can be explored that promote the inclusion of patients and communities for the purpose of cross-checking portions of the ML process. Finally, we suggest that the advantages of responsible innovation emerge through the iterative entanglement of ethical, methodological, and ontological considerations within the broader conceptual infrastructure of epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

The paper describes an innovative structured workshop methodology in garden-based-learning called “Nature in Your Face” aimed at provoking a change in citizens behavior and engagement as a consequence of the emotional activation in response to disruptive artistic messages. The methodology challenges the assumption that the change needed to meet the carbon targets can be reached with incremental, non-invasive behavior engineering techniques such as nudging or gamification. Instead, it explores the potential of disruptive communication to push citizens out of their (...) comfort zones and into creative modes of re-creating futures. This is done by confronting us with consequences of consumption by means of art and eco-visualizations. The aim being to achieve awareness, mental flexibility, and spurring debate. Thus, we invite them to react – and act upon these reactions by communicating their feelings or thoughts. This is used as an entrance point for broader and/or deeper engagement in a structured three-step methodology; Framing: A disruptive element is introduced into the local environment. This triggers an emotional reaction, which then is taken up in a process of framing the problem and working with solutions. Twisting: in a guided process, the initial energy from the emotional confrontation is twisted into a creative exploration of innovative solutions, from the perspective of the children. Using: The last stage is using the developed solutions in the local social system. The methodology is being applied in cooperation with a primary school, and is iteratively adjusted and evaluated in a formative, action-research based approach scenario. NiYF is to stimulate societal engagement through deliberately confronting stakeholders with unexpected and potentially upsetting appearances of nature, climate effects, or carbon-neutral lifestyle scenarios. We have verified the practical usefulness and potential of the methodology and found that NiYF triggers societal engagement and transition, negotiating responsibilities and unlocking action potentials. We also found that eco-anxiety, denial, self-efficacy and cognitive dissonance form children’s understanding of plastic. The project marks a paradigm shift from creating knowledge to using knowledge to create action, and a focus on learning from evaluating and adapting the approach in the field. (shrink)

The role of the cerebellum as a comparator of desired motor output and actual performance may be most important during learning of a novel motor task, when movement errors are common and corrective movements are produced to compensate for them. It is suggested that PET and recent fMRI data are compatible with such an interpretation. Increased activity in motor cortical areas during motor learning indicates that these areas also contribute to the learning process, [THACH].

There is a widely accepted family of views in the epistemology of testimony centering around the claim that belief is the central item involved in a testimonial exchange. For instance, in describing the process of learning via testimony, Elizabeth Fricker provides the following: “one language-user has a belief, which gives rise to an utterance by him; as a result of observing this utterance another user of the same language, his audience, comes to share that belief.” In a similar spirit, (...) Alvin Plantinga says that “…a belief on the part of the testifiee has warrant only if that belief has warrant for the testifier.” In both of these passages, we find strands of what I shall call the Belief View of Testimony. (shrink)

The Dreyfus account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way Dreyfus encourages a more reflexive approach. The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The (...) paper considers whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

On an account of virtue as skill, virtues are acquired in the ways that skills are acquired. In this paper I focus on one implication of that account that is deserving of greater attention, which is that becoming more skillful requires learning from one’s failures, but that turns out to be especially challenging when dealing with moral failures. In skill acquisition, skills are improved by deliberate practice, where you strive to correct past mistakes and learn how to overcome your (...) current limitations. A similar story applies to virtue acquisition, as moral failures will be a part of anyone’s life, and we will all have to learn from these experiences. However, despite the importance of being able to learn from our mistakes, this is very difficult in practice, given that failure of any kind can be distressing, and especially so for moral failure. The distress created by a recognition of moral failure often prompts responses of anger, avoidance, or defensiveness; rather than attempts to make amends and when necessary to work on self-improvement. The most potentially distressing response to moral failure is shame, as it is often associated with defensiveness. It is here where emotion regulation will be important to manage that distress, and I focus on the skill of emotion differentiation. I argue that emotion differentiation is a promising strategy for distinguishing the emotions we may experience in the wake of failure, including shame, and to encourage those emotions that motivate self-improvement. Thus, emotion regulation is important for virtue acquisition. (shrink)

This paper considers methodological issues of awareness during adult second language acquisition. Specifically, the paper deals with the issue of instructional orientations, the issue of biases in knowledge measurement, and the issue of reactivity in the online think-aloud protocol. Detailed reviews of prominent SLA research that has investigated the possibility of implicit SLA reveal that the instruction on implicit learning does not guarantee that learners engage in the implicit learning mode, that the majority of SLA research has employed (...) only tests of “explicit learning” such as untimed grammaticality judgment, and that there is some evidence that the online think-aloud protocol causes negative reactivity particularly when it is metalinguistic in nature. (shrink)

There is a widely accepted family of views in the epistemology of testimony centering around the claim that belief is the central item involved in a testimonial exchange. For instance, in describing the process of learning via testimony, Elizabeth Fricker provides the following: “one language-user has a belief, which gives rise to an utterance by him; as a result of observing this utterance another user of the same language, his audience, comes to share that belief.” In a similar spirit, (...) Alvin Plantinga says that “…a belief on the part of the testifiee has warrant only if that belief has warrant for the testifier.” In both of these passages, we find strands of what I shall call the Belief View of Testimony. (shrink)

Mental simulation — such as imagining tilting a glass to figure out the angle at which water would spill — can be a way of coming to know the answer to an internally or externally posed query. Is this form of learning a species of inference or a form of observation? We argue that it is neither: learning through simulation is a genuinely distinct form of learning. On our account, simulation can provide knowledge of the answer to (...) a query even when the basis for that answer is opaque to the learner. Moreover, through repeated simulation, the learner can reduce this opacity, supporting self-training and the acquisition of more accurate models of the world. Simulation is thus an essential part of the story of how creatures like us become effective learners and knowers. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to outline some of the thinking behind new e-learning technology, including e-portfolios and personal learning environments. Part of this thinking is centered around the theory of connectivism, which asserts that knowledge - and therefore the learning of knowledge - is distributive, that is, not located in any given place (and therefore not 'transferred' or 'transacted' per se) but rather consists of the network of connections formed from experience and interactions with (...) a knowing community. And another part of this thinking is centered around the new, and the newly empowered, learner, the member of the net generation, who is thinking and interacting in new ways. These trends combine to form what is sometimes called 'e-learning 2.0' - an approach to learning that is based on conversation and interaction, on sharing, creation and participation, on learning not as a separate activity, but rather, as embedded in meaningful activities such as games or workflows. (shrink)

Meena Srinivasan began teaching in order to touch lives, but with the demands of covering her curriculum she all but forgot her aspiration. During a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, Meena learned for the first time about mindfulness. In Teach, Breathe, Learn, Srinivasan highlights how mindfulness can be an effective tool in the classroom. What makes this book truly unique is Srinivasan's perspective as a classroom teacher, wrestling daily with the conditions about which she writes. Each chapter begins with a (...) personal narrative concerning a challenge Srinivasan faced during the school day and how a specific mindfulness practice helped. Testimonials from students, colleagues, and parents appear in each chapter, along with a mindfulness practice. Part 1 helps teachers develop compassion and shift from "reacting" to "responding" to demands. Part 2 offers techniques for cultivating loving-kindness and seeing students, colleagues, and parents as oneself. The author shares what research says about the effects of mindfulness practice on academic, social, and emotional learning. The last section of the book introduces the complete curriculum teachers can use to incorporate mindfulness into their classroom, replete with lesson plans, PowerPoint diagrams, handouts, and homework assignments. (shrink)

Methodological problems of how awareness during learning should be measured have been extensively discussed and investigated in cognitive psychology. This review considers; 1)whether amnesics can perform implicit learning tasks at a similar level to normal controls, 2) whether differences in instructional orientations create dissociations in performance in tests of implicit and explicit knowledge, and 3) whether participants can retrospectively verbalise the learning outcomes. The paper concludes that; amnesics’ implicit learning abilities differ from the normal controls, instructions (...) on implicit learning do not guarantee the occurrence of implicit learning, and objective and subjective awareness measures used in the literature face inherent problems and so the awareness controversy remains unsettled. (shrink)

The ) account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus (1980s) account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way ) encourages a more reflexive approach.The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The (...) paper considers whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)